


language of love

by memorysdaughter



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: Actually two of them, Comic-Con, Drinking, F/F, Illnesses, Love Notes, Major Illness, Multilingual Character, in which Patterson cosplays as a character Patterson's actress plays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7597552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorysdaughter/pseuds/memorysdaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane speaks thirteen languages.  Patterson seems to be fluent in everything, including things Jane doesn't have to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	language of love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Blindspot Hiatus Project's Fanfic Week 2 challenge prompt: languages.
> 
> Can be read as a stand-alone, but will eventually factor in to a massive Jane/Patterson project I've been working on that will be posted later this year.
> 
> This fic benefited heavily from the use of Google Translate. If I got something wrong, it's my own stupidity. Call me out and I'll fix it.
> 
> This was inspired by the SDCC Comic-Con 2015 trailer for Blindspot, where more of Jane's skills are demonstrated. Patterson holds up cards with phrases in different languages written on them and Jane knows them all. I headcanon that Patterson speaks all those languages and she was the one who wrote the cards.
> 
> A prize to the first Critter/Blindspotter who can find the shout-out to Liam's One-Shot.

It starts with a late-night wake-up.

Patterson shakes Jane’s shoulder.  Jane grunts and rolls towards her. “What is it?  What’s wrong?”

There’s another shake, this one more urgent and Jane opens her eyes. “What _is_ it?”

“Speak _English_ ,” Patterson groans.

Jane takes another blurry moment, running her words through her head again.  It hits her - she’s been speaking Romanian. “Sorry,” she murmurs. “What is it?”

As it turns out, it’s the flu, which Patterson swears she _never_ gets, but somehow that _never_ turns into a night of vomiting, a pale and sweaty Patterson clinging desperately to Jane between stints at the toilet, and an early-morning phone call to Mayfair, who’s not surprised to hear that Jane needs the day off but is _definitely_ surprised to hear that Patterson needs it off too.

 

* * *

 

Or maybe it starts with a pink Post-It note.

Jane comes home from work - she’d finally been able to head back in after four days of taking care of Patterson, mostly at Patterson’s insistence ( _"You’re_ _bothering_ _me, and I can pour my own ginger ale now that I don’t get woozy when I stand up!”_ ) - to find a pink Post-It note on their front door.

At first all she sees is the little scrap of brightly-colored paper; she can’t make out any writing on it until she gets closer.  And then she’s just confused.  It looks like gibberish.  Is this a terrifying note Patterson scribbled as she was being kidnapped?  Did she chop an arm off or something while she wrote it?

Then she plucks it off the door and realizes it’s Hindi.  She brushes one finger against it. “ _Chalo ek khel khelate hai_ ,” she murmurs.   _I want to play a game_.

Of course Patterson does, despite an illness that a mere three days ago required a trip to the ER for fluids and a shot of anti-emetic.

Cautiously Jane opens the door. “I’m home…”

She nearly trips over a small box in the foyer.  Inside is a Nerf dart gun and another note.  “ _Come find me.  I’m armed too.  Loser does the dishes.”_

 

* * *

 

It might start at the local pub, where Patterson, Jane, and Zapata go once or twice a week, barring any work emergencies or random outliers (like the flu Patterson swears she _never_ gets), trying to figure out what Jane likes to drink.

(She knows what she likes.  It’s just fun to watch Zapata and Patterson try to top themselves with stranger and stranger cocktails every week.)

“So, how do you do it?” Zapata asks over her beer.

Patterson turns to her coworker, a lime-flavored Blo-Pop sticking out of her mouth.  No one else believes her, but she swears it makes her gin-and-tonic taste amazing. “How do we do what?”

“It’s like you guys don’t even need to talk anymore,” Zapata answers.  She squeezes a lime into her mouth. “I should have gotten a margarita.”

“So get a margarita,” Patterson says, giving Zapata a confused look.

“What are you talking about?” Jane asks.

“Like today,” Zapata says. “We’re all talking about the latest case, and Patterson mentions that she’s seen that lantern imagery before, and you two exchange a look and then Jane says that’s right, there’s a tattoo that looks just like that on the inside of her leg.”

Jane laughs. “That’s not talking without words.  That’s just Patterson trying to preserve at least _some_ of my dignity.”

Zapata looks confused.

“I know the entire office has seen most of my body, but I think most of you have forgotten some of the… shall we say… more private bits,” Jane goes on. “And this one is, technically… _very_ private.”

Patterson goes bright red and chokes on her Blo-Pop. “You didn’t have to tell her that!” she gets out.

Jane kisses Patterson on her rose-blushed cheek. “No, I didn’t,” she agrees. “Some things are just worth it.”

 

* * *

 

Or does it start with Jane’s first Comic-Con?

She speaks thirteen languages, but she doesn’t speak this one.  She watches as Patterson, in armor that seems to weigh a thousand pounds but which Jane knows is made out of some sort of dense foam (it’s been the only thing on their dining room table for three months), jabbers away at a pair of dark-haired people dressed in similarly-detailed costumes.

“He rolls and gets a natural 20, and then he’s telling the DM he’s going to use his stats in deception to sweet-talk the bard!”

Jane recognizes all of those words, but she can’t put them together the way Patterson’s compatriots do.  They howl with laughter. “Sounds like his _sister_ was the true rogue that night!” one of them exclaims.

The other turns to Jane. “She’s hilarious,” he says.

“She is,” Jane agrees.

“I like your… costume,” he adds after a beat.

Jane looks down at her “costume” - jeans and a short-sleeved top - and then back up at him confusedly.

“Who are you supposed to be?  Wait, don’t tell me - is it Zor’Beth from the Felgarth games?”

At that Patterson swoops in and flings her armored arm around Jane’s shoulders. “No way.  She’s way too pretty.”

“Well, okay… Juniper from ‘Dark After Midnight’?”

“God, you’re such an amateur,” Patterson groans. “You’ll never guess it, so just step off.”

She waves the blue scarf around her neck in their direction. “I’ll see you guys later for the one-shot.”

When they’ve gone Jane turns to Patterson. “I’m not wearing a costume.”

Patterson grins. “ _I_ know that, and _you_ know that, but those two geeks are going to try all damn day to think of who you’re cosplaying, and since they both TPK’ed our last two games, I don’t feel too bad.”

“I didn’t understand any of that,” Jane says.

“I know,” Patterson says, and kisses her anyway.

 

* * *

 

However it starts, it ends with Jane in a hospital room, sitting at Patterson’s bedside, waiting for her to wake.  As the monitors beep and the IVs drip, she brushes her thumb across the back of Patterson’s hands and whispers _I love you_ in every language she knows.

_Je t’aime._

_Ich liebe dich._

_Se agapó._

_Obicham te._

_Te iubesc._

_Watashi wa, anata o aishiteimasu._

_Rwy’n dy garu di_.

_Ya lyublyu tebya._

When her throat chokes off with tears, she scrawls it on the back of Patterson’s hands with her pointer finger.

אני אוהב אותך

 

أحبك

 

నేను నిన్ను ప్రేమిస్తున్నాను

 

我愛你

 

And she waits, waits and hopes against all odds, as the snow falls against the windows of the hospital.  And machines breathe and click and Patterson sleeps and the world shrinks to just them, to just silence, to Jane knowing that no matter what she says, it’s their own private language that’ll bring Patterson back to her.


End file.
